All Hail the King Protea!

We're now working backwards in time a bit but figured you all (i.e. our parents and Kaly) would appreciate a thorough blog! Last Saturday, we spent our morning in the lovely Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens at the foot of Table Mountain. We joined the guided tour at 10 AM, on which the average age was about 65. We were the youngest by a good 20 years, but enjoyed the full TWO AND HALF hour tour with various Garden Club types. The highlight was undoubtedly seeing the huge collection of native fynbos, including the "King Protea," the flower of which measures a good 7 inches across. (You can tell we were listening closely!). We spent the afternoon driving in the intermittent rain to the Rhodes Memorial, Camp's Bay, and Clifton Beach, finishing our day on Signal Hill. (We found out today that a hiker was stung by bees 300 times on Signal Hill yesterday--glad we missed that!). That night we had our best dinner of the trip thus far at the Miller's Thumb, a cute neighborhood seafood bistro. It reminded us of Cape Town's version of Continental Divide in CVille--busy, loud, friendly, and full of locals.

Sunday morning we rose early and visited the extensive market at Green Point, where we perused the various stalls. Amazingly, EVERYONE was willing to give us a special deal! We were amazed by the hospitality. We then set the Nissan Tiida's sites on West Coast National Park, supposedly in the peak of wildflower season. Unfortunately, although we were charged peak non-native prices, the park was not at its peak. It was still lovely, though, and we spotted many ostrich and springbok. We spent that night in Langebaan, a seaside resort town.

PS: The Internet connection we're using now is a bit slow--we will upload pictures for all these stories when we get to a faster one!